Herbert Eser Gray was a Canadian lawyer who became a prominent federal politician. He was a Liberal member of parliament for the Windsor area over the course of four decades, from 1962 to 2002, making Gray one of the longest-serving members in Canadian history. He was a cabinet minister under three prime ministers and was the seventh deputy prime minister from 1997 to 2002. Gray was Canada's first Jewish federal cabinet minister, and he is one of the few Canadians granted the honorific The Right Honourable who was not so entitled by virtue of a position held.

The King's Privy Council for Canada, sometimes called His Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council (PC), is the full group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs. Practically, the tenets of responsible government require the sovereign or his viceroy, the governor general of Canada, to almost always follow only that advice tendered by the Cabinet: a committee within the Privy Council composed usually of elected members of Parliament. Those summoned to the KPC are appointed for life by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister of Canada, meaning that the group is composed predominantly of former Cabinet ministers, with some others having been inducted as an honorary gesture. Those in the council are accorded the use of an honorific style and post-nominal letters, as well as various signifiers of precedence.